“Git that hand-car off th’ track, boys,” he said. “Number Four’ll be along in a minute.”
Two of the men derailed the hand-car, while Welsh glanced up and down the road to be sure that the track was clear, and took a look at the mill switch, a little distance away, where they had been working, to make certain that it had been properly closed. He remembered that a work-train had taken a cut of cars out of the switch a short time before, but he could tell by the way the lever was thrown that the switch was closed.
Far in the distance he could hear the train whistling for the curve just beyond the cut. Then, suddenly from the other direction, he caught a sound that brought him sharply round, and saw with horror a great freight-engine rumbling rapidly toward him.
“My God, she’s runnin’ wild!” he cried; and, with a yell of warning to his men, turned and ran toward the switch. If he could only get there in time to ditch her!
But the engine whirled past him, and he stopped, seeing already the horror, the destruction, which must follow in a moment. Then, far ahead, he saw Reddy speeding toward the switch, saw him reach it, bend above the short lever that controlled it, and throw it over. Away up the track the “flier” flashed into view, running a mile a minute. He could guess what was happening in her cab, as her engineer saw the danger. The heavy engine rumbled on, all too slowly now, in upon the switch to knock the bumper at the farther end to splinters and fight her life out in the mud beyond. He saw Reddy throw the lever back again, only in that instant to be hurled away to one side as the great train swept by in safety. And the engineer, who had reversed his lever and applied the brakes, who had waited the outcome with white face and tight-set lips,—but who, never for an instant, had thought of saving himself by jumping,—released the brakes and threw his lever again on the forward motion. Four minutes later the train swept in to Wadsworth, only forty seconds behind the schedule!
The passengers never knew how near they had been to death—by what a miracle they had escaped destruction! After all, a miss is as good as a mile!
Reddy’s comrades found him lying unconscious twenty feet from the track. His right arm—the arm that had thrown the lever—hung limp by his side, and there was a great gash in his head from which the blood was pouring. In a moment Jack had torn off the sleeve of his shirt and made an improvised bandage of it, which checked to some extent the flow of blood.
“We must git him home,” said Welsh, “where we kin git a doctor. He’s hurted bad. Git th’ car on th’ track, boys.”
In an instant it was done, and Reddy was gently lifted on.
“Now you set down there an’ hold his head, Allan,” said Jack. “Keep it as stiddy as y’ kin.”